Food Fetish or Foot Fetish, the MasterChef Recap

America's "greatest" home cooks cook up masterpieces from canned food items. The winner decides what the remaining competitors cook for the elimination test. Two previous winners return to offer the contestants an opportunity to stay on this food/foot fetish show for one more week.

Mystery Box

The contestants lift their mystery boxes to reveal unlabeled cans of food. Big Willie is happy because he says he is used to canned food. I Run Around Ahran, on the other hand, sees this metal object as a curiosity. The contestants have 52 identical canned food items. They have an hour to make something palatable out of whatever they can find in those cans.

The home cooks start opening their cans and sniffing the contents inside. The odor does little to reveal what the food is in those cans.

Elizabeth reveals that she had a childhood filled with canned food. For a second there, I thought we were going to get a sob story. Sob story averted, for now.

I Run Around Ahran, or whatever her name is, gets bitchy about having to open all these cans. Jaimee is completely lost.

Gordon walks over to Pajamas to ask him what he's doing. He's taking the juices from canned food and making a soup. This show is called "master" chef. This guy. Gordon tells him that the juices are the most disgusting part of canned food. Pajamas is unfazed.

Graham and Joe head to I Run Around's cooking station. She is making a sponge cake. The only canned food ingredient is the fruit from a fruit salad and she is getting rid of the juices. Smart.

The judges go back up front where they talk amongst themselves.

Time is up and the three best dishes are called up.

Elizabeth is called up first. She made a borscht with peas and ham. Gordon says it's a bit too sweet but otherwise fine. Why are the best dishes picked based on how they look and not how they taste? Elizabeth copies the High-Heeled Cuntessa's style of standing placing one leg in front of the other.

Victoria is called up next. Her dish is a potted meat fritter with artichoke and beet salad. She used food from eight different cans to make this dish. Imagine sitting down and having to dine on a plate of eight different canned food items. Graham is really impressed.

Finally I Run Around is called up. I think Joe mispronounces her name, she doesn't make a big deal about it. She's made a rolled sponge cake with fruit and whipped cream. Gordon tells her he would only add color to her dish.

Elizabeth's pink bowl of puke is selected as the best dish. Admittedly the contestants didn't have much to work with here.

Elimination Test

Elizabeth heads back into the pantry with the three judges. The judges call in last year's winner, Luca, so he can plug his book, his catering company, and his new restaurant in Brooklyn. He also updates us on the latest developments of his family. He is awaiting a baby, in case anyone is that interested. They the introduce the first MasterChef Junior winner, Alexander. He doesn't really plug anything. They both enter with covered dishes but they are not revealed to Elizabeth just yet.

Elizabeth will choose which dish each contestant will cook. She and the judges head back to the kitchen. She walks up to the balcony. Cuntessa makes a face. Luca and Alexander enter the kitchen with their covered plates.

The two introduce their dish. Luca has a pancetta wrapped veal with radicchio and apples, Alexander has a passion fruit panna cotta with berry coulis and hazelnuts. I have no idea what that means. It looks like a cross between a custard and flan with some red sauce and nuts on top. Then there's these two yellow shards of glass. This dish looks painful.

Elizabeth now gets to choose who cooks what. Her strategy as she says it is to assign the panna cotta to people who she thinks cannot pull it off and the veal to people she thinks cannot pull it off. Well thanks Elizabeth.

She assigns the panna cotta to Cutter, Christian, Jaime, Christine, I Run Around, Francis, Victoria, and Tyler. The rest of them will make the veal. They all gather round to sample the dishes they will be making.

They will have one hour to make these dishes. The contestants run to the pantry. The first of a series of shots of the Cuntessa's heels is shown to us. What is the fascination with this? Does Gordon have some kind of foot fetish. Note to Gordon: feet and food do not mix well.

Big Willie wonders what radicchio is. They all head back to their stations.

The three master chefs discuss how to make the tow plates. Who cares? Moving on.

Gordon goes over to his favorite high-heeled sweetheart the Cuntessa. She acts all catty on why she was chosen.

Joe and Graham walk over to Christian. They ask him why Elizabeth gave him the panna cotta? Christian responds, "To be honest, I really don't know. To be honest, I really don't care. I'm not really that great with desserts." Joe responds, "To be honest with you, that's why she gave you the panna cotta."

Gordon goes over to Big Willie who plans to cook the meat twice. Gordon, who is a foot fetish vampire, loves his meat full of blood (hopefully served by someone in high heels), is not very happy about this development. Gordon is actually quite livid. "You're neither wearing high heels nor are you serving me blood, what is wrong with you?"

Gordon goes back up front with his two buddies. He turns up to the balcony and asks Luca what he thinks about Big Willie cooking his meat twice. Luca seems not to care as much as he is not a bloodthirsty vampire like Gordon is. Graham asks Alexander who's doing the best job with his panna cotta (that flan dish). He points out Jaimee and Tyler.

Cutter mispronounces panna cotta. I Run Around eyes him wearily. He has never eaten one either. Gordon is surprised by this.

Jaimee heads to the refrigerator to get her chilled panna cotta. One of her ramekins is missing.

Time is up. The judges start calling contestants up one by one. Cuntessa is up first. The judges taste her food. A totally random shot of her heels is taken. The shot lasts way too long. She responds to the judges in a phone sex operator's voice. What is wrong with this woman? I just love how her confessional describe her profession as aerial dancer when she so clearly is a stripper. As she walks away, another shot of her heels.

Willie is called up. His dish is too cooked for bloodthirsty vampires. Only Buffy can save him now. As he walks back to the cooking station, Cuntessa reveals what a cunt she is by mocking Willie in her confessional, "Unfortunately Big Willie's was kind of a let down, which made me really sad. I mean he has to fail eventually if I'm going to win, but he didn't have the best day." You really have to listen to the tone in her voice.

Christian's dish is panned. Cutter's is praised. Jaimee comes up with a flat panna cotta. She calls it slush.

Tyler is called up and asks for three blindfolds. His panna cotta is also flat. There are also three skewers on his plate as well. Gordon steps back and says that for the first time in the show's history someone brought them a plate they didn't cook themselves. Tyler took Jaimee's ramekin. The judges claim it was an accident. The three judges head back to discuss the situation. They come back. They cannot judge his dish. He is eliminated from the competition. Tyler apologizes to the judges and then turns around to Jaimee and apologizes to her. Melancholy music plays as he leaves the kitchen.

Gordon now turns to awarding the best dish of the night. Here's Gordon, "The best dish of the night is little miss tippy toes, Courtney." What the hell dude?

OK, it’s me, Elizabeth, from the show. Just to be clear, I think these recaps are hilarious. I only want to respond to ONE thing — and that is to defend my cross-legged standing stance. That whole section where the judges are tasting everything takes about 4-5 hours. It was never my choice to wear heels, and standing in them (although I wore flats behind my station) was, as you would assume, excruciating. I stood that way to relieve some of the aching in my hips and lower back. Carry on, MasterChef watchers!